


Commentary on "Player's Phase"

by Anonymous



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:02:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26300866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: This is a response to MercurialComet’s essayPlayer’s Phase (On Canon Material, Fandom Racism, and Racially Transformative Fan Works in Fire Emblem: Three Houses), which I recommend reading, as well as a character analysis of Dedue. This essay assumes you have read MercurialComet’s essay and are familiar with Three Houses.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Anonymous





	Commentary on "Player's Phase"

This is a response to MercurialComet’s essay [_Player’s Phase (On Canon Material, Fandom Racism, and Racially Transformative Fan Works in Fire Emblem: Three Houses)_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200900/chapters/63762424), which I recommend reading. This essay assumes you have read MercurialComet’s essay and are familiar with _Three Houses_.

Please be aware that this discusses racism and genocide and links to in-game text that sometimes includes these topics.

## Introduction

This is an anonymous essay rather than a comment because:

  * My ao3 handle and Twitter handle are the same, using a pseud on ao3 would still make it easy to link the two, and while I am more than happy to occasionally engage in critical discourse, I don’t enjoy when this permeates my “for fun” fandom experiences.
  * While I welcome commentary from MercurialComet, having a separate essay rather than a comment creates less pressure to engage if he doesn’t want to. I’m also an academic at heart, so I’m used to responses being a separate entity from the initial discussion.
  * Formatting is easier and I think readability is important.



A few disclaimers:

  * I’m writing this because I’m interested in critical discussion, especially of fandom. Dedue is a character I like and I share many of MercurialComet’s concerns. While this essay includes criticism of certain points, **I want to be clear that I respect him as an author and think he’s done important work with his piece**. Again, I like seeing thoughtful discussion of topics like this!
  * Yes, at the time of writing this I have read the comments of MercurialComet’s essay as well as the second chapter that clarifies a few points.
  * Yes, I am Black. Yes, I have other marginalized identities. Despite my anonymity, I ask that you take my claims about personal identity in good faith. If you aren’t willing to do so, I suspect you may not take any of my other claims in good faith. I bring this up due to a common tendency to assume that criticism only comes from “outside” perspectives.
  * No, I’m not concise. Except in these bullet points. I tried!



This essay primarily focuses on claims about canon Dedue. Honestly, I think MercurialComet has great points on common issues with Dedue in fandom, and commend his exploration of what transformative work could look like. There is creative work in the fandom doing this, and while I don’t highlight specific pieces in this essay due to my focus on the text of _Three Houses_ , I think it’s good to acknowledge they exist! If anyone has recommendations of what they consider transformative content, or at least content that thoughtfully explores Dedue’s character, I’d love to hear about them in the comments. I may leave a comment about this of my own depending on how many spoons I have for curation.

My source for direct game quotes is the [FE3H Datamining project](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/), and the majority of direct quotes are from MercurialComet’s essay. Any other material that I reference has a specified source.

## The Blue Lions and Dedue

A central thread of _Player’s Phase_ highlights the ways in which Dedue’s character is tethered to Dimitri, who falls into the white savior trope, and how the game prioritizes Dimitri’s response to the Tragedy of Duscur instead of Dedue’s:

> “In fact, most times when Duscur is brought up, it is in regards to the ambush rather than the country, and it seeks to further Dimitri’s character, the prince who is seeing his kingdom destroy a country, instead of Dedue’s, the Blacksmith’s child who is seeing his country be destroyed.”

Azure Moon is the only time Dedue or the details of the tragedy have much narrative presence, and while the game’s plot-relevant cutscenes focus on Dimitri more than the other characters in general, Dedue’s supports allow him to exist as his own character with his own pain.

His supports with [Mercedes](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Mercedes/C), [Ashe](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Ashe/C), [Flayn](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Flayn/C), [Shamir](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Shamir/C), and [Annette](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Annette/C) do not center Dimitri, and the Mercedes and Ashe supports reference Duscur as a country beyond the tragedy. His interactions with Dimitri are a separate section, notably not the first because I don’t want to center Dimitri in the discourse surrounding Dedue.

Outside of Azure Moon, the handful of references to the Tragedy of Duscur are in relation to Dimitri’s involvement, not Dedue’s, as Dedue is not a playable character and the player has limited interactions with him. However, within Azure Moon, when the tragedy is mentioned in Dedue’s supports (or any character’s support conversations besides Dimitri) it does not center Dimitri’s experiences to the degree that the earlier quote suggests.

In the plot-relevant scenes outside of his supports? Yes, this is an issue. Within supports, however, it’s noteworthy that the Blue Lions affected by the tragedy discuss their own experiences. The game favors Dimitri’s experience in the main cutscenes to a fault, yet within support conversations the other characters affected—mainly Dedue, Felix, and Ingrid—reference the tragedy in the context of their own character development, not Dimitri’s. Yes, the game should have given Dedue far more narrative space for his pain, but when the tragedy _does_ come up with him, there are some surprisingly thoughtful moments.

When the Tragedy of Duscur is mentioned in his support with Mercedes, it is in the context of cultural heritage and restoration, which their [paired ending](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/characters/12/Dedue/endings) emphasizes by having them open a school focused on Duscur. His supports with Byleth emphasize Dedue’s personal tragedy, and his paired ending with Byleth focuses on the restoration of Duscur in a way that does not involve Dimitri. [His support with Ashe highlights the tragedy in their A-rank](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Ashe/A), but is otherwise about Dedue’s experiences as a man of Duscur and them bonding over cooking. When the tragedy does come up in their A-rank it is framed as a tragedy _for Dedue_ with no mention of Dimitri.

This is not something specified in _Player’s Phase_ , but a related criticism of Dedue’s portrayal is that he passively accepts the public narrative about Duscur and its people. [His B-rank with Ingrid](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Ingrid/B#event-41) has him say that he does not know the truth and considers it possible that the people of Duscur may have assassinated Faerghus’ previous king, but acknowledging the possibility is not the same as passive acceptance. In his C-rank with Sylvain, he points out that “ [whatever the truth, we are still perceived as traitorous assassins](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Sylvain/C) ” and they both comment about how prejudice often overshadows the truth. In his B-rank with Ashe, [there’s a moment](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Ashe/B#event-30) where Ashe is surprised that Dedue would laugh about the stereotypes people apply to him, but to me this reads as someone who feels there is no point trying to correct prejudiced attitudes.

Of course, his [C-rank with Ingrid](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Ingrid/C#event-33) has him say that he doesn’t “begrudge” the people of Faerghus who have attacked him (yikes), and his [C-rank with Felix](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Felix/C#event-35) has him claim that he would kill civilians if Dimitri told him to, but these are conversations with people he knows are hostile towards him and he seems to want little involvement with. He could be saying these to exit the conversation or they could be his sincere feelings; both interpretations are supported by the in-game text. This is something I expand upon more in the next section, but I feel comments such as “ [weapons do not have a will of their own](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dedue/Felix/C#event-40)”, where Dedue minimizes his status as a person, reflect his starting point for character development, not where his narrative ends (at least in Azure Moon).

> “He only grows in relation to Dimitri, and very little is done towards his own character. He exists more as a plot point and a prop for Dimitri to prove that the Kingdom isn’t “all racist”, even as they work to never help Duscur out of the poor situation that the nation was forced into.”

To be clear: the game’s writing includes racism in-game and on a meta level towards Dedue, but his character has more depth than it may seem at first glance, especially due to most scenes involving Dedue being locked to the Azure Moon route. His appearances in all other routes are brief and on behalf of Dimitri, in a way that is comparable to how Hubert outside of Crimson Flower makes brief appearances on behalf of Edelgard.

## Dimitri

This is not a discussion of Dimitri and Dedue as a romantic relationship, but rather the in-game dynamics of a general relationship. I want to address the idea that Dedue’s character and personal narrative are centered around Dimitri, along with the claim that their canon dynamic is unhealthy. On this second point: I agree that yes, it is, but this is acknowledged by the game as a problem, primarily in their support with each other and Dedue’s support with Byleth. Even if their canon dynamic does not start in a healthy place, part of Dedue’s character growth involves changing his relationship with Dimitri, either in how it is framed or who else becomes important in his life.

Despite him noting a “life debt” to Dimitri during the events of the game, Dedue’s [S-rank support](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Dedue/S) and paired ending with Byleth specify that he resigns from his position as the king’s vassal to return to his homeland. While his other endings imply or outright state his continued service, all but his Dimitri and Ingrid paired endings emphasize what Dedue does _outside_ of that service.

Again, I draw a parallel to Hubert as a retainer-like character, whose other [paired endings](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/characters/5/Hubert/endings) include him working for Edelgard. Unlike Dedue, there are no endings where Hubert _doesn’t_ serve Edelgard, which is not a criticism of Hubert’s character but one of the responds I feel that Dedue’s continued service to Dimitri in many of his paired endings is not part of the shortcomings in Dedue’s writing. In this he is treated equivalently to characters in similar positions. Ingrid, another character whose loyalty to Dimitri is noted in both monastery text and her supports, also has quite a few [paired endings](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/characters/18/Ingrid/endings) (on Azure Moon) where she serves House Blaiddyd as a knight. Based on the game’s text, I do not feel that Dedue is singled out or treated unfairly by having him remain a vassal to Dimitri in several of his endings.

There is meta-commentary to be made about the trend where POC characters are relegated to supporting roles for white characters, but again, for this essay I’m focusing on the game’s text, because otherwise this would morph into a dissertation.

Though Dedue’s monastery and cutscene dialogue often mentions Dimitri, his supports provide important context and allow Dedue to exist outside of Dimitri’s orbit. Most of his [paired endings](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/characters/12/Dedue/endings) suggest that he is able to have a life that does not center around Dimitri even as his vassal. His solo ending describes how he serves Dimitri for the rest of his life, but I feel his supports and paired endings where Dimitri is not central convey an arc of Dedue’s life expanding beyond this relationship. Dedue’s potential for this character arc is stated at the end of his [A-rank with Byleth](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Dedue/A):

> “I had not thought much of my own life, until now. Except that I would gladly cast it aside for His Highness. That is still true, but now I desire to see the end of this war. Until I can show you the fields of Duscur in bloom... I will go on living.”

Although Dimitri is still important to Dedue at this point of his life, he is not permanently tethered to him. His faith in Dimitri stems from Dimitri’s actions as well as his promise to assist Duscur, yet it is possible for Dedue to separate from Dimitri without giving up his personal goal of seeing a restored Duscur. While this arc of development is explicit in his Byleth supports and ending, I return to his Mercedes paired ending in particular as an example of how Dedue can find happiness in his homeland (or see it restored but live in the Duscur residential area of Fhirdiad) without Dimitri.

Dedue’s tendency to devalue his own life and place others’ needs above his own is presented as a problem to overcome. Themes of self-sacrifice are prevalent in the Azure Moon, which could be a separate essay, but Dedue’s character arc fits into what the route explores with many of its characters.

In Dedue’s support with Dimitri, their way their difference in status negatively impacts their friendship is a recurring topic. Dedue’s self-deprecating attitude is portrayed negatively even in [the C-rank](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dimitri/Dedue/C). Their B-rank includes him saying to the prince of Faerghus that he [finds Faerghus abhorrent](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dimitri/Dedue/B#event-65), and what bothers Dimitri is not this sentiment but rather the way Dedue frames his status as a vassal. Their [A-rank](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Dimitri/Dedue/A) emphasizes a mutual desire for support and a more equal relationship—yet the game acknowledges how their difference in societal power is a barrier to this, one that is not easy to overcome.

Finally, I wish to address this sentiment:

> “Dimitri ignores the power he has to directly help Duscur rebuild and only focuses on punishing those who framed the country (and following that train of thought, is only focusing on those who killed his father).”

From Dedue’s [paired ending](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/characters/12/Dedue/endings) with Dimitri: “Among Dimitri's achievements was the reconciliation with Duscur: an extraordinary effort that required extensive negotiations to get past a history of betrayal and oppression. It was a trying task, but Dimitri never once considered giving up.” While none of Dimitri’s other paired endings mention Duscur (and I think this is bad), there is nothing in the text of Azure Moon or Crimson Flower that implies he would have ignored doing _something_ for Duscur. Quite the opposite—for example, Dedue’s paralogue specifies that [Dimitri has promised to aid Duscur](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/291#event-20) regardless of his support level with Dedue; by the end of the route there’s nothing that suggests he wouldn’t honor this. Perhaps in the Crimson Flower route five years of war put Duscur restoration on hold, but this wanders further into fanon speculation. My point is that there is nothing in the text that suggests Dimitri would outright ignore the potential to help Duscur, and when he is obsessed with revenge this is a low point in his character arc which he either recovers from and embraces his ability to help others, or he dies.

On the Golden Deer and Silver Snow routes, much like the initial part of Azure Moon’s war phase, Dimitri’s obsession with revenge is shown as something that will lead to his downfall. What makes Azure Moon different is that he comes back from it. During the war phase of the game, Dimitri doesn’t do much for Duscur due to the continent-spanning war at the time, and in part one he is a prince that has yet to ascend the throne of a kingdom in the midst of political turmoil. His political power is limited by his situation.

It sucks that the game doesn’t have Dimitri respond to Ingrid or Felix’s racism towards Dedue. No points of contention there, I restate it because it REALLY sucks and does not make sense for Dimitri’s character, but I don’t think this implies that he doesn’t care about how he can use his status to assist Dedue.

There are many aspects of Dedue’s character that I wish the writers had explored differently, but I maintain that his character development is on par with most of the cast (which is to say, many characters have limited and sometimes niche-to-discover development in their supports that doesn’t affect much of their dialogue outside of supports).

Dedue has his own character along with his own goals, and while I do feel Dimitri falls into the white savior trope and the game does not give Dedue enough narrative space to express his own pain, he is not a prop for Dimitri’s character.

## Dedue’s Paralogue

 _Player’s Phase_ spotlights Dedue’s paralogue as the biggest issue with his in-game portrayal. While I share some of these criticisms, I feel that Dedue’s paralogue uses gameplay to convey narrative information, as well as providing insight into Dedue’s character and his attitude towards Faerghus.

In the original release, the cutscene at the start of Dedue’s paralogue has a moment where, when it comes to discussing the political situation in Duscur, Dedue steps forward and says that he should be the one to mention it, not Dimitri. I appreciated this moment because not only does Dimitri _ask_ Dedue whether or not he wants to discuss a traumatic topic, Dedue’s response shows him as someone worth paying attention to when it comes to Duscur.

...For whatever reason, this specific dialogue seems to have been removed in one of the game’s updates. You can see the exchange I reference in [this video from 2019](https://youtu.be/lWI71GaSDBs?t=47), but it’s absent from [this 2020 video](https://youtu.be/I2OP-PUh2YU?t=89) as well as the [datamine project](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/290#event-36). I’m not entirely sure what happened or why, and while this invites some discussion about which version is “more canon”, both count as part of Dedue’s in-game portrayal. I bring this up because brief as this moment is, having it introduces some nuance in how Duscur’s political situation is referenced.

 _Player’s Phase_ describes the paralogue’s premise as one where Dedue is used to suppress a rebellion against his own people, but the situation is not that straightforward. [Dedue was going to ask for Byleth’s assistance](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/290#event-22) even before Dimitri’s arrival and the goal is to minimize casualties. The political pickle they’re in is outright said [at the battle’s start](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/43/war-for-the-weak#event-script-10).

The gameplay reinforces this in its defeat conditions, which are if Dedue falls in battle, ally units defeat the enemy commander, or 15 turns pass. Outside of these conditions, when the Kingdom and Duscur forces fight, [the ensuing dialogue](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/43/war-for-the-weak#event-script-37) (lots of overt racism in their comments) portrays the Kingdom soldiers as wholly unsympathetic and out for blood. They are not framed as your allies.

It would be a disaster for an uncrowned prince to attack soldiers from his own kingdom; Dimitri notes within the paralogue that [he can’t directly order the soldiers](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/43/war-for-the-weak#event-script-12) but intends to persuade them to stop. It makes sense that they fit into the gameplay as green “allied” units rather than the yellow “other” army (which can still attack the player or be attacked). While the gameplay proceeds as normal, when Dedue first “kills” an enemy unit in this paralogue [there is an exchange that notes they’re told to flee](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/43/war-for-the-weak#event-script-33) and the overall framing suggests that you’re not killing people here but rather trying to _prevent_ them from being killed. There are many cases where someone “dying” on a map, complete with animation, does not mean they’ve died in the story.

The discrepancy in skill between the Duscur and Kingdom forces is one reason Dedue and Dimitri want to intervene in the first place. This adds an unusual form of difficulty in that you are encouraged to keep enemy units alive and act quickly so that they aren’t killed, which creates an awkward gameplay situation that reflects the awkward narrative situation in a rare moment of the game mechanics actually being used to reinforce the story.

[After the battle](https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/291#event-17), Dedue is open about sharing the same resentment towards Faerghus as the Duscur soldiers, in another moment that shows he’s not as unaffected by the prejudice directed towards him as his stone-faced demeanor suggests.

As they went through the effort to darken the Duscur soldiers’ models, it is frustrating that they didn’t take the time to at least darken the 2D portraits to match—we’re past the days of cramped data cartridges. It’s awful that Dedue’s survival is linked to this paralogue and his conditional presence in Azure Moon’s war phase results in his character being sidelined in a way unlike Hubert and Hilda (the other retainer or “retainer-like” characters) on their respective routes.

I’m taking a moment to address the specific claim that “Dedue is the only character who can be fridged (killed off to advance another character’s plot) for Dimitri’s character arc in-game”, because Rodrigue’s role in Azure Moon is largely to die for Dimitri’s character development. I don’t like it with Rodrigue either!

Despite its shortcomings, I find that Dedue’s paralogue clues the player into some of the nuances around Dedue, Duscur, and Dimitri’s involvement that are easy to miss if you aren’t reading Dedue’s supports. The gameplay reinforces the idea that Duscur is wrongly persecuted by Kingdom forces and both Dedue and Dimitri wish to put an end to this, which is difficult in their current situation. I wouldn’t rate it as the nadir of Dedue’s in-game portrayal. (Personally, I consider that to be his Ingrid and Felix supports.)

## Final Thoughts

As it is mentioned in _Player’s Phase_ that “Dedue is literally the only playable character who turns into a monster”, Edelgard is a player character on Crimson Flower who transforms into a monster that you fight at the end of Azure Moon. I think there’s some good discussion to be had in how these transformations compare, but it is not the case that Dedue is the only playable character who does this. One of those things I wanted to note, but couldn’t fit nicely into an earlier topic.

Another “couldn’t find a place for it earlier” point is that Dedue’s treatment outside of Azure Moon is comparable to pretty much every unrecruited character. They rarely have personal development in the way they do as playable characters. (A notable exception being Hilda’s potential death while trying to protect Claude, which is a big change from her part one behavior!) I don’t consider Dedue’s lack of development or presence in other routes as part of my personal criticisms regarding him.

“What is canon” is a thorny question that rarely has a clear-cut answer for complex topics. I’m not a fan of how _Three Houses_ writes any of its POC characters, but it’s not all bad. Interpretations of canon that suggest Dedue is an undeveloped character centered around Dimitri, and that the game doesn't care about how the Tragedy of Duscur impacted Dedue miss out on some interesting nuances.

MercurialComet’s work a welcome addition to the conversation about Dedue, racism in _Three Houses_ , and racism in fandom in general. While much of this essay has been a rebuttal, I share many of his concerns about Dedue in fandom and wish to see more transformative works. The majority of my criticism relates to how the game’s text is analyzed in _Player’s Phase_.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.


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